Client Views

“What a perfect way to end a five day meeting for health care providers! The final count for McGill University’s 15th International Congress on Care of the Terminally Ill was approximately 1,400 delegates and presenters, from 39 countries. What better final plenary session could there have been than a probing examination of teamwork? What better medium through which to learn about the determinants of teamwork than jazz?

Insightful. Thought provoking. A stunning demonstration of the need to listen and the potential for magic when we do! The live jazz performance was particularly effective in galvanizing audience attention and getting across the points you wished to convey. Congratulations Brian and heartfelt thanks. You left us on a high, whatever the key was?!”

“A wonderful session – enjoyable – very demanding audience – want value added from everything they do – people liked it a lot – interested in how the band worked – could easily see parallels – these guys worry about working with difficult people – how do you deal with that – the band helped them see how they might – our people have to integrate new people all the time – prickly people; prickly personalities – there was a real understanding of how the music worked. I highly recommend it – already have to several people.”

— Bruce McDonald, Co-President & CEO, Black & McDonald

“Lots of things to process. Wow, that event works at multiple levels. At times the emotion in the room was almost touchable and then all the people madly taking notes and looking for the recipe of take-aways and wishing you had used the flip charts. Talk about people having multiple views all playing at the same time … and all that with 150 people!!”

— Pat Bradshaw PhD, MBA Program Director, Schulich School of Business, York University

“Getting in the Groove brought an innovative program of jazz and dialogue to our professional development programs. The idea of using jazz to demonstrate to our consultants the skills for successful teamwork was an unusual concept. With music and facilitated discussion, Brian encouraged our audiences to observe and identify what was taking place among the musicians.

His many years as a jazz musician and combined with long experience in corporate and consulting environments allow him to get audiences and musicians in tune with each other. He understands and relates both the world of business and the world of music. Seeing the skills of a jazz performance in practice was extremely effective. In the words of one participant, it brought together in two hours all the theories of teamwork he’d ever been taught.

Through this unique offering of jazz and dialogue, we were able to show our consultants a brilliant example of successful teamwork.”